"Hey, Democrats, where were you? Hey liberals, where were you? The potential train wreck that is the Hillary Clinton candidacy didn’t just become evident last week when ill-chosen words about 25 million “deplorables” and a public near-collapse tanked her polls to make this a tied presidential race.
No, Democrats and liberals, the possibility of Hillary crashing and burning was there from the outset of her candidacy. And yet you stood there and let it happen.
You Democrats and liberals who did not “feel the Bern” but desperately wanted a Democratic president to succeed Barack Obama — you did nothing to prevent the potential cataclysm that is upon you now. Instead, you’ve spent more than a year chortling at Republican failings, expressing disgust at the rise of Donald Trump and convincing yourselves that your ideological tendency is on the cusp of multigenerational rule in the United States." Podhoretz
————-
Well, JP is a conservative, but this is a an interesting piece. He thinks that the HC candidacy is leading the Democrats and the Left generally into the wilderness. We will see. pl
http://nypost.com/2016/09/17/the-liberal-establishments-clinton-obsession-is-blowing-up-in-its-face/
Col.,
“25 million” He left out a zero.
“The dynamic in this country has now become zero-sum. If you’re a partisan …, you hate…. . ”
I think he characterized that correctly. It’s certainly true of the establishment of both parties, though I think ultimately the establishment hates the most bi-partisan of all Americans – the Deplorables, -the most.
On a “blowing up” note according to the Mayor of NYC the explosion in NYC, well: “Mayor de Blasio called the explosion an “intentional act,’’ The Establishment dare not call this terrorism. Their party candidate can’t stand the heat of a memorial to 9-11 how the heck can she deal with the real thing. I’m sure we’ll see millionaire athlete Colin Kaepernick and friends provide another distraction today. I wonder how the Deplorable are going to like that string of events.
Interesting that HC’s response to the “intentional act” in New York is to drowsily repeat several times on her plane that “we must support the first responders.” She looked like she had been woken at 3am and could not get it together, and could think of nothing to say other than the talking point which had been given to her.
With the Clintons it’s an attitude thing; everyone’s an enemy until proven otherwise. Be critical, even mildly, and get banished. Started happening to friends of mine back in the 90s, and, from all reports, has continued to today. For the Clintons, it gets so they’re surrounded by flatterers.
From the outset, only abject loyalty to their ambition was wanted, and there wasn’t anything you held dear they wouldn’t sell you out on. 26 years of that takes a toll. And Hill is the most maladroit, most tone deaf pol I’ve ever come across.
I hesitate to post this, but I think its increasingly important to distinguish Democrats/Liberals from the Left: there is no natural alignment between them.
At the core the two are anathema and historically conservatives have capitalized on this antagonism. To maintain, say monarchy, or whatever materially beneficial status quo is operational, conservatives have seen to it that enough is shared that most people can maintain their self respect and with it respect for that status quo.
If you treat the majority of your population with a modicum of decency, most people will tend apolitical robing the left of oxygen. Liberals are free market ideologues by definition: Liberalism is the invention of 17th and 18th century aristocrats who wanted “freedom” from their monarchical superiors to monetize and extract value in whatever ways capital saw fit with no concern for fairness: “the market knows best”. In England, the Crown rallied the population to its side whenever these “utilitarian” utopians made too much of a mess and there and in the US at least, prevented real leftist roots from spreading.
The New Deal, in its prosecution of WW2, layered a veneer of leftism over American capitalism that, while constraining capital from political power, left equity ownership securely in private hands while ensuring a reasonable distribution of its benefits in the form of wages. This arrangement survived until the end of the Cold War when the “regulations” that had ensured most Americans were treated fairly were scrapped and capital could again fully exploit both “market power” and the power of money in politics. HRC, a Liberal Democrat, is running on the ancient, fetid brand fumes of a party that only ever cared about the left for the purposes of silencing the Bolsheviks, and the dogs aren’t eating the dog food anymore.
The branches of the two parties that appear to be trying to merge, the “bipartisan” Borg, its Think Tanks and State level minor leagues, in that act are fracturing both: conservatives will never vote for Dollary and the left will never vote Clump, Bernie was the last best chance to put the New Deal veneer back in place and the Party hippy punched him reflexively.
Identity politics is not the left and will only be “leftist” when Black Lives Matter merges with Deplorable Lives Matter. If the Duopoly continues to treat most Americans as poorly as it has in the last 40 years, it just may create real leftism in the United States. It will be ironic beyond words if the Dollary Clump Campaign finally brings the US a real left, but if the US is to prosper again it has to learn to look at Americans citizens as something other than an extractive resource.
Hillary is one of the two worst POTUS candidates in my lifetime. On top of that, she is a lousy campaigner. Her losing has always been highly possible. Hope this wasn’t news for anyone.
Steve
Thank you, jsn–you saved me having to write a similar screed.
HRC is not left, not progressive, and, to my mind at least, not liberal except in the “free market” angle that you describe. She is a neoliberal corporatist, concerned mainly with money and power.
Thank you. Whenever Tyler or another right winger starts railing against the “left” and then holds Killery up as an example of the “left”, I want to pull whatever hair I have left out of my head.
Lets get this straight right now. She is Center Right and all about the status quo. There is no “left” in the USA that has any power or say in anything. Anybody that comes in here railing against the “left” might as well be railing against the monsters under their bed.
Garbage in, Garbage out. Which is why I spend no time reading anything by anyone who still plays the part of useful fool by spouting that cr@p. Spend your time going after the actual bad actors or go home.
There may be some actual leftist living in N Cali growing and smoking pot but those people have zero effect on anything so sing a different song. I personally hate the democratic party and its establishment consultant scumbags. And I hate the extreme right and its toady’s for being so vile towards Clinton when he was president that I actually felt sorry for him at the time.
That’s the main reason he was able to do so much damage, because the pure hypocrisy of people like Newt “cheat on my wife why she is in the hospital for cancer” Gingrich that Slick W got a lot of passes he didn’t deserve.
I want Trump to go to Washington and fire the whole craven lot of them, then I don’t care after that. Its unfortunate he seems to be selling out as well but whatever.
As a college student during the Carter-Reagan years, I would hear ultra-leftists deride electoral efforts. “The bourgeoisie chooses the president,” they said. A small group of American oligarchs meets and decides, and then the populace holds a fake drama ratifying their choice.
If that’s true, this year’s meeting involved only the suicidal wing of the establishment.
It’s probably too late, but there’s still one scenario by which the more prudent wing of the power elite might save us. They can sub in Joe Biden.
Biden has some behavioral tendencies that some find problematic or creepy – until compared with Trump’s. See Maureen Dowd’s take here: http://www.businessinsider.com/maureen-dowd-barack-obama-election-hillary-clinton-democrats-joe-biden-2016-9
A Biden candidacy and Biden Administration would be the least damaging path forward available to the nation at this late date.
Obama won’t do the right thing. Just as the Clintons left the White House “dead broke,” Obama has a mind to make money. Do you think he’d risk future earnings in a bid to decapitate Clinton Inc.? Nor does Biden himself have the guts or the room to maneuver.
Bernie Sanders does. He should proceed in this order:
1) Privately ask Clinton to withdraw for the good of the party.
2) Hire a team to explore a national write-in campaign. He can’t win this way – the rules are too restrictive. But he can deny Clinton the Presidency.
3) Quietly ask the DNC to force her out and replace her with him. Recent polls back him up. The DNC will refuse and threaten to ruin his “place in history.”
4) Publicly call on Clinton to withdraw for the good of the nation. Simultaneously hold organizational meetings for a write-in campaign.
5) Wait for a week while the DNC ponders this existential threat and begins talks with Biden.
6) If the DNC and Clinton and the power elite can come to an understanding and arrange a dignified transition from Clinton to Biden, withdraw and endorse Biden/Gabbard or Biden/Kaine. If not… ? (That’s a hard one.)
Sanders has done a great service to the nation already. With this mission, he can go farther. He can change the course of history and show the ever-abdicating American elite what leadership looks like. The window is closing fast.
If anybody’s got a better alternative to suicide-by-Trump or suicide-by-Clinton, please air it out now.
“Fleas dream of buying themselves a dog, and nobodies dream of escaping poverty: that, one magical day, good luck will suddenly rain down on them – will rain down in buckets. But good luck doesn’t rain down, yesterday, today, tomorrow or ever. Good luck doesn’t even fall in a fine drizzle, no matter how hard the nobodies summon it, even if their left hand is tickling, or if they begin the new day on their right foot, or start the new year with a change of brooms. The nobodies: nobody’s children, owners of nothing. The nobodies: the no-ones, the nobodied, running like rabbits, dying through life, screwed every which way. Who are not, but could be. Who don’t speak languages, but dialects. Who don’t have religions, but superstitions. Who don’t create art, but handicrafts. Who don’t have culture, but folklore. Who are not human beings, but human resources. Who do not have faces, but arms. Who do not have names, but numbers. Who do not appear in the history of the world, but in the crime reports of the local paper. The nobodies, who are not worth the bullet that kills them.”
Eduardo Galeano (1940 – 2015)
Trump up 7 in the LA Times, +4 in CO, + 5 in Ohio and NM.
Bombs going off in Manhattan and NJ, “soldiers of Allah” committing mass stabbings in MN.
Hillary is promising more of a third world invasion because that’s how the Democrats expect to stay in power.
Say hello to President Trump. At least Powers and the rest of the Russophobes will be gone.
Someone on my FB feed suggested Dems need to generate their own good news. This panicky statement came after agreeing with Clinton about the deplorables. Maybe her campaign can ask the suspicious, and not to mention, ludicrously idealist Sanders voters to generate buzz on behalf of the party’s anointed queen?
I think Trump supporters expect him to use his position to enrich himself and accept this. It sounds better than exporting wealth and importing identity under the banner of neoliberalism.
Former11B,
She is not “center Right”. She is an Alinsky disciple and a cultural marxist.
You picked the form of your destroyer, and no amount of sophistry is going to change the fact she’s a hard leftist globalist.
Lesly,
We expect he’s going to be President of the United States, not President of the World, and not turn the US into a bazaar/sewage drain for every Turd Worlder who is looking for gimmedats.
“I think Trump supporters expect him to use his position to enrich himself and accept this. ”
Yup. If he goes through with taxing pass through income at 15% it should help him, his family and other wealthy folks quite a bit. At least he doesn’t hide the fact that he intends to make a lot of money out of being president.
Steve
Of whom do you speak? And why?
I wasn’t previously familiar with Galeano, but this quote does sum up the NeoLiberal ethos with regard to normal people.
Political Panto — LOOK BEHIND YOU!
or in this case above you.
Biden!!!!
gnash. rend garments.
The turning point that put the Democratic Party on the slippery slope leading to its present pathetic state was when the newly elected president Bill Clinton turned the national party apparatus over to his pals in the Democratic Leadership Council. The DLC was formed in the wake of the party’s electoral debacle in 1984, when Mondale/Ferraro presidential ticket carried only one state, Massachusetts. During the 70s and early 80s the movement conservatives, following the strategy suggested by soon-to-be-SCOTUS-justice Lewis Powell in then private, now famous memo to the head of the US Chamber of Commerce 1971, had put the Democrats at a significant funding disadvantage. This tilted playing field was perceived by A number of prominent party governors, Congress critters and operatives to have been a major factor in the blow-out, and in response formed the organization for the express purpose of establishing better communications with the business communities to better meet its desires, and thus encourage their largess at fund-raising time. Bill Clinton was not a founding member of the DLC, however he signed up soon after it was stood up and became an enthusiastic participant.
Unfortunately the DLC channeled Willie Sutton when they chose the financiers and traders of Wall Street to be among the first business sectors they approached. They were receptive but also demanding. The DLC folks probably convinced themselves that they could serve two masters: their legacy New Deal base of the lower tiers of the middle class, the working class and the dispossessed on the one hand, and the money bags of Wall Street on the other. But as they became addicted to the revenue flows and as the labor movement became less and less powerful political player the party’s modus operandi increasingly relied on fraud: pitching itself to the legacy base all the while betraying them. But increasingly, that base was catching on, as exemplified by the Party’s voter turn-out disasters of 2010and 2014. And the party poobahs were not helping things by undermining progressive candidates for whom advocacy of the economic interests of the 90 percent were front and center, and occasionally actively working against them. Witness the DC party establishment’s support of Joe Lieberman run for reelection as an independent to the Senate after he’d lost the primary to Ned Lamont.
As my mother used to say, “If you choose to sup with the devil you’d best come prepared with a long spoon.”
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Democratic_Leadership_Council
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lewis_F._Powell_Jr.#Powell_Memorandum
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Willie_Sutton
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Senate_election_in_Connecticut,_2006
(I’m finding it difficult not responding to Tyler’s amusing word salad, but a promise is a promise.)
Col.,
Looking at the current poll internals, it seems that some moderate Republicans have returned to the fold. We’ll see how Trump’s latest off script comments will play, as his perceived extremism is what has repelled the GOP soccer moms.
It was clear last November that the DNC had frozen out any other Dem from the big money it takes to win the primaries. This made possible Sanders’ incredible run and near upset of Hillary. I think the DNC should be brought up on charges of political malpractice. One beneficial potential of a Hillary loss is her supporters could be purged from the DNC.
I was responding to a line in your previous post: “… but if the US is to prosper again it has to learn to look at American citizens as something other than an extractive resource.”
That reminded me of Galeano’s line “… do not have faces, but arms” and I thought to send the whole quote.
I don’t think it only captures the Neoliberal ethos towards the “normal”, or “deplorable”, for the contempt it captures is amply present within the Conservative tradition as well.
In any case, I agree with the intent of your position; there needs to be renewed respect for all of the American people.
And, I also agree, calling Hillary “the left” (let alone “hard left”) only makes sense within a an extremely restricted understanding of political options. Such a limited and balkanized understanding now dominates within the US.
RJJ,
If you think Biden is just going to swoop in and win this thing, I have a bridge to sell you.
Where’s all the people telling me how Somalis were a net positive for MN and that reports of crime and terrorism simply weren’t true.
Where are those people who were here pushing this nonsense not too long ago?
https://www.politicalcompass.org/uselection2016
it’s pretty clear that you don’t know your left from your right.
This John Podhoretz article reads like a very sad cry of the heart. If the Rparty had nominated some plausible brand name member, he would not be so sad over Nominee Hillary over on the Dparty side. His big fear is that Candidate Trump will win and make the Rparty into something different than what the Commenterriers and the National Reviewers would have preferred it to remain.
I share Mr. Podhoretz’s dismay over Sanders’s free giveaway to Clinton on the Server Deal. I would not have expected him to systematically and programatically condemn the private server. But I would have preferred that he give a blank-faced answer to the effect that ” the FBI has experts looking into the matter and it would be premature to speculate at this point as to what may or may not be found”. But I think he was trying to win gratitude-points from the Dparty Establishment, which of course he did not win. I wish he had not bothered trying.
I suspect Senator Sanders would consider the plan proposed above by Out Of Steppe to be far too complex with far too many moving parts and requiring far too much non-stop energy for Sanders to ever contemplate. But even if he did, and every domino fell just exactly as Out Of Steppe would hope, once the Berners saw their huge effort bait-and-switched into a backing for Biden, whom they like little better than they like Clinton, their bitterness would be renewed and deepened and they would reject the Dparty nominee ( Biden) in even huger numbers than the numbers of them ( us) who will reject Nominee Clinton. ” Bern me once, shame on you. Bern me twice, shame on me. Bern . . . Bern . . . won’t get Berned again.”
Lesley, I can only assume you don’t know any/many Sanders voters. Those that I caucused with included cancer researchers, a guy who manages a front end of the website for a Fortune 500 company, several people who develop medical devices, a grocery clerk, an accountant, and some articulate students – just off the top of my head.
“Ludicrous idealists?” Not unless you think that searching for cures to cancer, or helping people monitor blood glucose, is ‘ludicrously idealistic.’
Tyler, how about the $885,000,000 in gimmedats that The Donald weaseled out of NYC?
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/09/18/nyregion/donald-trump-tax-breaks-real-estate.html
Yes, yes, it’s a link to ‘lame stream media’, but this information is also supported by the reporting of David Cay Johnson, who has been reporting on Trump since 1988, and who specializes in economic policy and finance.
https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=david+cay+johnston+trump
I often enjoy your comments, but having spent far too many hours of my life around real estate developers, I’ve observed that without gimmedats, their business model = bankruptcy within a month. They’re always involved with local and state politics, because their projects are not viable without a whole spectrum of gimmedats.
These (mostly) guys are economic parasites, who love ‘risk’, provided they can offload their debts to suckers and ‘reinvent’ themselves with a new project and a whole new set of LLCs. The Limited Liability Corporation, of course, means they keep their yachts and second homes on the lake, while their subcontractors go broke, have no medical coverage, and don’t have the legal resources to even the playing field.
With all that said, it gives me heartburn to find myself in agreement with a neocon like Podhoretz.
There have been plenty of signs and ‘tea leaves’ that Hillary was going to have a rough go of it, but apparently the DNC is operating on the political equivalent of Windows 3.0.
for those of you consumed by Hillary Derangement Syndrome (or Love, since everyone desires a scary red) here’s a treat… enjoy!
http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2016/09/18/what-s-in-hillary-clinton-s-radical-thesis.html
on the Deplorables thing, c’mon… does anyone really think that at least a third of the TrumpMeister’s followers aren’t animated by deplorable values?
if not, you evince a powerful idealism. hell, at least 1/3rd of the participants in EVERY populist movement espouses deplorable values.
that’s the enticement, & at least half the fun.
Because our political discourse is so narrow, the political spectrum in the US is all basically right of center. Whereas in Europe and other countries, there is a greater and much sharper difference between left and right. But Hillary would fall on the left side of the right of center. Our political system, although not designed as such, only allows for a narrow range of discourse along mutually acceptable orthodoxies. Those lines, whether “liberal democrats” or “conservative republicans”, all exist on a continuum that is still right of center at the end of the day on any political spectrum. That she’s a disciple of Alinsky and may share Marxist attitudes doesn’t mean she’s left of center when it comes to actual policy.
Well done, and thank you.
What will the Orange Messiah voters do when after he is elected president, they are still old, unemployed, angry, fearful, unhappy that there are still racial and religious minorities in the country, and they can find no one to build the wall. Should be interesting.
Nancy K
“after he is elected president,” Is this a prediction? pl
Brunswick,
Yes who to believe? The paradigm of Left and Right from the French Revolution or mendacious mealy mouthed sophistry that considers open borders, mass gun confiscation, and criminal coddling center right.
“Politicalcompass.org” Lmbo what kind of speak and say basic political analysis are you living in? Step your game up.
TPE,
To your last line: yes, it does. Let’s not engage in ridiculous relativism here.
I’m going to a Trump rally in Fort Myers, FL this afternoon. It is nice to be retired and able to have the time. I may very well vote for him in the election. My fear is that neither “major” candidate will receive enough votes in the electoral college and the House will elect Eddie Munster from Wisconsin.
I hope to be positively influenced by Trump and his followers. Demonstrators will be there so that will have an entertainment value as a bonus!
By the way… Watch what happens this week as the Barack Obama ‘personal insult’ comments sink in among black voters. We are seeing a surge of support for Trump in the black, urban demographic with the “Democrat Plantation’ meme taking firm hold, and an appreciation for Trumps’ ‘straight talk’ (what do you have to lose did, in fact,resonate). Obama just iced the cake by talking down to black voters and insisting that they vote as a racial block for Clinton as a duty to him personally. I predict that you will see this taking hold, and breaking out, in social media this week. Another tone deaf, Dem unforced error. Ballpark guess, right now Trumps’ support among blacks is around 25% and skying. You won’t be able to see this if you are getting your news from CNN (spend some time in Twitter and YouTube and you’ll be able to watch it happening in real time.
That’s some major league concern trolling, Podhoretz.
Here’s Kevin Drum on why the progressive case for Hillary Clinton is pretty overwhelming: http://www.motherjones.com/kevin-drum/2016/09/progressive-case-hillary-clinton-overwhelming
EA
What is “concern trolling?” pl
Tyler
You never get a response from them
because there is nothing to quantify
or qualify their statements. I ask the
same questions all the time here in
Mogadishu on the Mississippi and the
silence is deafening. As a group they
are a net loss here. An insder working
in social services has been told not to
question any benefits they apply for.
Saw multiple groups myself at SS
office. They have had a shortage of
canes here due to disability claims.
(snark!!)
On the other hand, from a reliable and unassailable progressive 0 http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/can-the-occupy-left-vote-for-clinton/article/2602135
It is a possibility more than a prediction, but it could go either way.
You are so wrong about black voters. They will not vote for Trump in any kind of numbers at all. They may not vote in record numbers for Clinton, but they will not be voting for Trump. By the way I don’t watch CNN but then I don’t watch FOX either.
I try to avoid link whoring myself and my feelings won’t be hurt if pl. doesn’t post this comment, but I’ve spent a fair amount of time and amalgamated a number of links on your subject here, embedded in this series of posts from five years ago. You may find them interesting, or an unreadable bore!
http://cobblehillbilly.blogspot.com/2011/11/sting-of-success-or-why-powerful-prefer.html
Per wikipedia:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Trump_Organization
The Trump Organization spans a wide variety of industries including real estate, construction, hospitality, entertainment, book and magazine publishing, media, model management, retail, financial services, board game development, food and beverages, business education, online travel, airlines, helicopter air services and beauty pageants.
and a total of 515 subsidiaries.
More interesting is why Trump has not sought to point out the broadness of his businesses (And that the bankrupt ones are a small fraction) to counter the common meme you note. I would propose its because he recognizes that this election has nothing to do with facts and policy.
Col Lang
In this case the the concern troll suggests to the other side how they could have made something better. His actual intent is to sow doubt/uncertainty among Democrats.
A good friend of mine (Caucasian) who was an ardent Bernie fan just revealed that he went for Hillary in the primary because of an apparent lack of enthusiasm for Sanders among minorities, esp African Americans. I did the same thing for the same reason plus the fact that the GOP would have had a field day with a transplanted NY Commie Jew to Vermont. As in he “honeymooned in the USSR and never came back.” The tell was that next to nobody in the GOP laid a glove on Sanders during the primaries.
Like Drum, I do not like the fact that Hillary’s a hawk, but I added up all the plus and minuses and went with her. I still consider it the right choice. I was stumped by those 80%-20% polls in favor of Clinton a few weeks back. The current polls make more sense considering the Dem/GOP makeup of the country. The debates will be the deciding factor for the independents/undecideds.
Thank you for clarifying. Personally I think the quote best summarizes the pathology of power: psychopaths, which genetics tell us make up about 1% of our population, are attracted to power and once they have it they use it to deploy their instrumental vision of their fellow man.
Lacking in empathy and moral imagination they imagine a world of people like them and set about, with their power, institutionalizing that vision. Once started, the perks of the system create a sociopathic environment that attracts ambitious people of all sorts but particularly those lacking a strong moral vision.
Once the institutions and culture are in place, the powerful are institutionally/systemically incentivized to take the instrumentalist view embodied in this quote now rounded out with the arrogance of unrestrained power.
Here’s the UD’s definition of Concern Trolling:
http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=concern%20troll
Probably right, re Sanders’ supporters. Also problematic: he made a deal and would be seen by many as dishonorable in breaking it. But who else can do the patriotic thing here and help the DNC see the trouble they’re in and the gravity of HRC’s health and legal problems? This person needs:
1) The stature to plausibly threaten a last-minute write-in campaign that would take enough votes from HRC to ensure a Trump victory (Bloomberg? Warren? Gore?) AND
2) The temperament to risk “everything” (in a political sense). The person who makes this power play would not be rewarded with the nomination or anything else; s/he would be vilified by polite society, even if the strategy “worked” and the DNC switched out its nominee.
There is, in all likelihood, no one with the STATURE + GUTS required. Proving Podhoretz right.
Nancy,
You’re so pretty when youre mad.
America is gonna be great again, and all you can do is pout about it.
Nancy,
20% support among blacks.
Let me tell you how wrong you are regarding blacks willing to vote for a sick old woman.
pj
He wrote the book in 2015. Now she’s the Dem nominee. There really is no alternative for a reliable and unassailable progressive. If only for Drum’s reason #46: She would nominate liberal judges to the Supreme Court.
The probable post-election makeup of Congress means major legislative initiatives by Clinton (or Sanders had he been nominated) will lie fallow. Esp since Sanders has been so lackluster in promoting Dem candidates down-ballot: http://www.politico.com/story/2016/08/senate-bernie-sanders-226524
Chuck,
“turning point that put the Democratic Party on the slippery slope leading to its present pathetic state”
The DLC machinations took over the party apparatus not the voters. The ’84 election turned more on economics than political philosophy. The “slippery slope” started back in the ‘60s and accelerated in part due to all the other “great society” programs passed in the years after civil rights legislation. I would add DLC hack Terry McAuliffe – currently the Governor of Virginia, to your list. I know a few people who won’t vote democratic again just because of him and his actions in looting a union pension fund. That of course never makes the news.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terry_McAuliffe#Fundraising_career_and_relationship_with_the_Clintons
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_presidential_election,_1984
11B,
“There is no “left” in the USA that has any power or say in anything. ”
Who the heck is pushing “gay” marriage and transgender bathrooms? The center right? That’s pretty laughable.
If I am NOT wrong you give me the bridge. Deal? Intact and in place.
I prefer iron or stone bridges – span not important – also would consider a brick railway viaduct.
I very, very much want to be wrong, tho.
Alinsky was interested in having the common voice heard in politics and was not particularly ideological. His testimony to the House UnAmerican Activities Committee: “Not at any time. I’ve never joined any organization—not even the ones I’ve organized myself. I prize my own independence too much. And philosophically, I could never accept any rigid dogma or ideology, whether it’s Christianity or Marxism. One of the most important things in life is what Judge Learned Hand described as ‘that ever-gnawing inner doubt as to whether you’re right.’ If you don’t have that, if you think you’ve got an inside track to absolute truth, you become doctrinaire, humorless and intellectually constipated. The greatest crimes in history have been perpetrated by such religious and political and racial fanatics, from the persecutions of the Inquisition on down to Communist purges and Nazi genocide.”
Hillary was a Goldwater Girl and is transparently in no way like Alinsky described himself. Leninist Marxism did in fact use gender and any other identity factor to isolate people, in that sense alone Clinton has something in common with the “Marxist” program.
To the extent she is interested in Alinsky it is to subvert his intent with his own methods getting the poor to vote against their own interests. To the extent she is “Marxist” it is only in her utopian vision in which everything will server her as an “historical inevitability”.
Substitute “Passive Aggressive”. It works for me.
EA
Is this your wish list or a prediction? pl
Never thought I’d agree with a Commentary writer, but he nailed it.
Have we forgotten so soon that Debbie Wasserman Schultz was installed as “impartial” chair of DNC to anoint Hillary and tank Bernie? She did her job well. The poster should not complain about Bernie’s supporters not trying hard enough when the outcome was greased from the top.
Col Lang
Drum’s list?…Not a prediction! Just a list of reasons for progressives to support Clinton.
The House will not pass any/most of Clinton’s (or Sanders) legislative initiatives mentioned on Drum’s list. Then there’s the Senate (and the filibuster if Dems get a majority in November). Most of the legislation mentioned in Drum’s list are things I would like to see implemented. But she will get Scalia’s empty seat filled on the SCOTUS.
Oh (((Tyler))), you’re so pretty when you are mad.
How about I let the Saint Cloud Police Chief answer your question for you?
http://mediamatters.org/video/2016/09/19/watch-mn-police-chief-shut-down-fox-news-fearmongering-about-somali-immigrants/213176
A now dead moron, who didn’t even manage to kill anyone but himself, decides to commit suicide by cop. Well, it’s September, and nobody looks forward to winter here. So we had an off-duty cop help him out and just move on. Things like this happen when you have a population of over 5 million. Now that may be enough to give you the bed-sweats, but we just kind of move on with life.
The crime that really upset people here was that f***ing German from Stearns County (also St. Cloud area) who killed Jacob Wetterling and did so many other horrible crimes over decades.
Jsn,
I’m glad to hear Alinsky found himself innocent. Surely an unimpeachable source. Do you also know gullible isn’t in the dictionary?
Hillary has changed with the times. The fact that you bring up the Inquisition (lmao) shows you don’t even have a handle on history.
Rjj,
Sorry, but the Democrat “Coalition of the Fringes” isn’t going to support some white dude.
“An insider”. The mythical “guy I know”, and you “saw multiple groups”, how traumatizing.
Here is what I will admit, they aren’t the best drivers, and Somalis (unlike Ethiopians and Hmong) are generally rude and aloof. But you can hardly blame them: ever since 911 they have been treated like terrorists by too many people who have Tyler’s attitude. That tends to be a self-fulfilling attitude.
Anyway, here is some actual “quantification” for you:
http://www.startribune.com/study-finds-african-immigrants-more-powerful-economic-force-than-previously-thought-in-twin-cities/311854661/
They claim the census undercounts the Somali community under 24,000 and that they actually number around 100,000. That may be high, but I would guess that it is a lot closer to 100K than 24K. The statewide income of the African immigrant population is estimated at 1.6 billion. That’s a pretty big number.
Herb
The comment was about them getting
every free benefit they could apply for.
Do you dispute this fact or just the
unknown source?
Imagine
Not true. At all. Obama appointed DSW back in 2011 to head the DNC. The Clinton camp actually wanted DSW out back in the fall of 2015 but the Obama team never got around to getting rid of DSW until there was no other choice. See:
http://www.politico.com/story/2016/07/debbie-wasserman-schultz-dnc-226100
and here:
http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/debbie-wasserman-schultz-planned-to-accuse-obama-of-being-anti-woman-and-anti-semitic/article/2560566
A bit of aside, because I’d begun to hear terms like “concern trolling” or “virtue signalling” only recently.
I’d have thought people with a certain point of view might want to hear what those who are not necessarily of that view might have to say about X or Y. Personally, it’s the main reason I enjoy a majority of things that you or Tyler write: I know where our disagreements are, but I want to know why you think as you do, for example. But I’m often finding it puzzling that people use terms like “concern trolling” or “virtue signalling” to dismiss any disagreement with the “received truth” ™ wholesale. (Again, this does not apply to what people like Podhoretz have to say, since he is hardly a disinterested observer) I suppose this is not entirely new: people always disliked talking politics and have someone disagree, I suppose. Still, this tendency seems to be getting worse lately and interferes with sober and professional analyses, not just on “electoral” politics either.
Just my two cents about talking with people about politics.
Guess you didn’t even notice where Jill Stien fell on the Compass.
You probably didn’t even look at it long enough to notice where the Primary Cantidates fell on the Compass,
Or take the test yourself, and compare where you fit, to the Cantidates.
Because the compass showed you something you don’t “belive”, you dismissed it out of hand.
I love so much, how for far to many, their “belife’s” trump facts and reality.
This is the Best US Election ever, and is going to set the stage for many more to come.
herb
you are obviously a troll.
thanks for trying.
Jacob Wetterling!!??
readerOfTeaLeaves,
I’m one of the ludicrous idealists writing in Sanders. I donated and volunteered. Haven’t done the lesser evil Hail Mary vote in a while. So, I guess I’ll just be a commie according to family, a racist according to friends protesting the protest vote, or a fool according to displaced Republican associates sheltering with Dems.
About rich gimmedats, these never count. Corporate giveaways such as direct subsidies, tax abatements, grants, enabling low wages through state/federal assistance and the like are used wisely by job creators who happen to be rent seekers, donchaknow.
steve g, since it has an unknown, unreliable source, I dispute it as a fact.
Ray, when someone asks if you are a god–say yes!
Actually I said I was for Trump. Freudian slip on your part? She is center right. You can’t go there, I get that but than I wonder why? A freed mind can go where it wants. Most of the guys I knew when I was in were fairly open minded. But we didn’t have Rush…so there you go.
Its also possible that we have different definitions of what the “left” is. I try to stay with standard dictionary ones myself.
Gay and transgender people. These are not issues that affect quarterly bonuses so the overlords let democracy work itself out. Apparently a majority of people in this country are a bit more live and let live than the folk you surround yourself with.
And that gives me a little bit of hope. As far as how it is portrayed in the clown show known as our public discourse why do you believe any of that. And with the upcoming geo-thermonuclear war on tap, why do care?
Lesly,
I think we’ll need a bigger ship.
“Clinton camp actually wanted DSW out back in the fall of 2015”
Sanders had announced on April 30, 2015.
DWS would have had at least two things to recommend her – 1. she is an animus magnet/sink (people like to dislike her), 2. she would immunize DNC against charges of antisemitism should Bernie become a problem.